Skin wrinkles and sagging of tissue are undesired reminders of advanced age to many people in our youth-conscious society. Skin problems in individuals can result from a variety of extrinsic or intrinsic factors such as harmful UV radiation from the sun, exposure to the environment, stress, fatigue, disease, aging, or a combination thereof. With age the epidermis thins, sebaceous secretions decrease, the skin becomes more susceptible to dryness, chapping, and fissuring, and the dermis diminishes with loss of elastic and collagen fibers. This results in wrinkling and other forms of roughness, including but not limited to, increased pore size, flaking, mottling, discoloration, wrinkling, and skin lines.
In addition to changes on the surface of the skin, aging muscles lengthen due to the effects of gravity and to a loss of muscle tone. The combination of sagging muscles and aging skin contributes to the overall cosmetic changes typically observed with age, such as wrinkling which involves the transition of a formerly smooth skin surface to one that appears unevenly shrunk, lined, and contracted. Present treatments of placid skin and muscles range from cosmetic creams, moisturizers, acid peels and dermabrasion to various forms of cosmetic or plastic surgery.
A large number of skin care compositions are known in the art and used to improve the health and/or physical appearance of skin. Romanian patents RO 108,529, RO 108,530 and RO 108,642 describe the use of a day cream for the use on different types of skin comprising 0.001-0.1% diethylaminoethanol. Some monosubstituted dialkanolpiperazines have been claimed as emulsifying agents in the cosmetic industry in U.S. Pat. No. 2,421,707. German patent applications DE 2,533,101 and DE 2,416,556 disclose the use of alkanolamines as moisturizers. U.S. Pat. No. 5,554,647 to Perricone discloses that aging skin and muscles can be treated by the topical application of a precursor of the neurotransmitter acetylcholine, such as dimethylaminoethanol, monomethylaminoethanol, choline, or serine and mixtures thereof, as well as diethylaminoethanol, monoethylamino-ethanol, dipropylaminoethanol, monopropylaminoethanol, dibutylaminoethanol, and monobutylaminoethanol. U.S. Pat. No. 6,607,735 and US 2003/020951 relate to compositions containing dimethylaminoethanol (DMAE) and tyrosine to reduce puffiness of the skin under the eyes and the appearance of dark circles around the eyes. These compounds have unpleasant odor characteristics that prevent them of being optimal for the use in cosmetics, particularly for cosmetics applied to the human face. U.S. Pat. No. 5,135,913 and U.S. Pat. No. 5,348,943 relates to cosmetic compositions in general, and more specifically, to the use of derivatives of glycyl-L-histidyl-L-lysine: copper(II) (GHL—Cu) within skin treatment and cosmetic compositions.
While various agents have heretofore been provided for dermatological conditions, it has however been found that compounds of the present invention are odorless and provide superior benefits in reducing the appearance of skin imperfections and in their use as cosmetics.